“Also, how did you open the window yesterday?”
“Just an inch. Barely noticeable. It’s why I’m a bad ghost. I suck at being a ghost.”
“And if I try to touch you, will my hand just pass straight through? Obviously it can when the candle isn’t lit because I’ve tried. It’s like you’re not even here.”
“I dunno. I’ve … never talked to someone who can actually see me. Can we slow down?”
“Let’s try it!” I reach out my hand.
West is off the couch suddenly, backing away. “Hey, I said slow down, dude! I don’t wanna jinx this. What if, like, contact with the living makes me vanish? Or destroys me? Or … fuck, I don’t know. I’m new to all of this, too, y’know. It’s not like I’ve been dead for three centuries or something.”
“Three centuries would be a long time to spend in one place,” I agree, dropping my hand. “I just want to try it, though. Just a high-five or something. Y’know. A little congrats for scoring the job.”
He decides to turn it into a joke. “Heh, look at you. Trying to touch me. Getting your hands on me. I know I’m hot, but dude, restrain yourself a bit, alright?”
I laugh. I’m so happy, I feel drunk. “Don’t flatter yourself, Westley Harmeyer! You are not my type.”
He frowns. “I’m not?”
“Nope. Byron is my type. Sensitive. Adorable. Hot and humble and charismatic.”
“Hey, I’m all of those things!”
“You’re the opposite of those things. But I might agree you’re a bit sensitive.” I eye him with a smirk. “What if I was a hot chick, dissing you, teasing you, slowly taking off all of my clothes to get in the shower? Would it drive you crazy to watch me?”
“Bro …”
“Do you get boners?” I’m off the couch, fascinated suddenly by that notion. “Wait a sec. Without any blood in you, how do you get boners? Do you have blood? Do you even pee?”
“Okay, my dick is my business, buddy.”
“I’m just asking! Inquiring minds want to be told so they’re less inquiring. I mean, you’re very dead, we’ve established that. But obviously some part of you is still alive. You still feel. You still think. You’re … still you in so many ways. You miss pizza. You regret being an asshole when you were alive.”
West crosses his arms. “Okay, I get it, I get it.”
“So surely you get horny, too. Hey, you said it just the other night. ‘All guys do it.’ Do you choke your lil’ ghost chicken whenever the candle’s out?”
“Wow, damn, hold your horny horses, bud. There is nothing ‘little’ about my dick …”
“You know what? Fuck Beetlejuice. You should write your own handbook. What it’s really like for the recently deceased.”
“That’d be one sad-ass book.”
“I’m also probably taking for granted the notion that you even can write.” I gesture at the table where his note still sits. “I mean, if that was any indication …”
“The stupid pen kept falling through my hands, and it takes a lot of focus to—Y’know what? Forget it. I’m gonna help myself to the last slice of that pizza, since the fridge seems easy to open, and food seems to be the easiest thing to pick up. Fucking figures. I’m apparently destined to gain nine hundred pounds in the afterlife.” He tosses his hands and goes off to the kitchen.
I’m still bouncing in place from my excitement. I go up to his note and read it a few times. “Adorable. It looks like my two-year-old niece is trying to write me a Happy Birthday letter.”
West suppresses a laugh at the fridge as he grabs the last slice of pizza. “Fuck off, Griff.”
“When is your birthday?” I turn around, note in hand, and lift an eyebrow. “Since you won’t tell me any juicy facts, like when and how you died, or whether you have boners, or whether you poop. Oh, I didn’t ask that. Do you poop? Where does the pizza go?”
West kicks shut the fridge, then struts up to the window, pizza in hand. His face looks nearly devoid of all color in the overcast daylight coming in. “I’m a fall baby, born October 31st.”
“Really?? Halloween?? That’s quite a coincidence. Your birthday’s … oh, wow … tomorrow!”
“Yep.” He stares out of the window, chewing with dark, brooding pensiveness.
I notice. “You don’t seem all that happy about it.”
“Because my birthday … is also my death day.”
“Oh. You died on …? Oh.” I bite my lip, feeling ashamed suddenly for all of my inappropriate cheer. “I didn’t know. You died a year ago? It’s been that long?”
“It’s been that long. A year, cooped up inside, with nothing and no one but me, me, me.” He chomps off another bite of the pizza like an angry dog. “I guess it’s not that bad. I always have interesting birthday parties.” He pauses. “Had.”